Now in its third year, the electronic music festival held in Pleinfeld near Nuremberg, Germany, has already become a hot item on Europe’s festival calendar. With around 5,000 fans gathered to dance to the likes of techno veterans Sven Väth, Sascha Braemer and Karotte in a beautiful beach setting with idyllic sunshine.
As in previous years, RealHorns SoundSystems handled the planning and provision of the sound reinforcement system. Aiming for ‘utmost’ sound quality, the careful selection of systems extended beyond the mixing and PA to peripheral sound processing. When it came to the clocking, Mutec products made the cut for a number of reasons.
‘Highest precision clocking is absolutely essential for a sweet and clear sound without digital harshness, as well as precise transient response, tight bass reproduction, and a three-dimensional spatial experience,’ says Realhorns SoundSystems founder, Andreas Plodek. ‘All these requirements were achieved by the combination of the Mutec Ref 10 and MC-3+ Smart Clock USB clocking products.’
The first of a total of eight 10MHz Referenced MC-3+ Smart Clock USBs re-clocked the AES3 audio stream in the RealHorns input section post the A/D conversion with a Cranesong Hedd and Jünger Audio loudness processor. A second 10MHz Referenced MC-3+USB was configured as a word clock generator and distributor. Various other digital audio processors in the system received word clock at 48kHz and 96kHz from this unit.
A custom externally-word-clock-referenced Apogee Rosetta 800 AD/DA converter allowed analogue processing of audio signals. The Rosetta and the 36 DSP channels of the complex horn system were re-clocked by six additional Mutec MC-3+ Smart Clock USBs.
In both applications (word clock generation and re-clocking) the MC-3+USB units were externally referenced to the 10MHz clock of the Ref 10. Eight simultaneously available clock outputs at both 5Ω0 and 75Ω allowed use of the Ref 10 in combination with not just the Mutec products, but also 10MHz-compatible products third-party manufacturers, such as SOtM Audio.
‘Every Word Clock, internally or externally, or every 10MHz clock referencing the word clock, sounds different depending on the system configuration,’ Plodek says. ‘Even the slightest differences in phase noise performance between the clocks somehow cause audible changes. Re-Clocking of digital audio streams and 10MHz clock References are super interesting topics for me that also see a lot of interest online.’
More: www.mutec-net.com
